Day 9 - Shopping and Wine Tasting

In the first part of the day we went into Brno, ostensibly to do some sightseeing of places I hadn't been for years and that Claire hadn't ever been.

We parked behind the International hotel and walked through to Svobody Nam to see the new clock. I thought it looked like a bullet but apparently is was supposed to commemorate the defeat of a Swedish Army and at 11am a ball drops and it sounds off.

http://my.opera.com/Gaddag/blog/new-black-granite-clock-in-brno-post-100 . I was right huh!!

After a few sights were struck off the list of things to see, we ate a slice of Czech pizza before visiting a large shopping centre. I needed new trainers and bought a good pair of Puma in the sale. Result.

Once back at Lilka's we had a quick snack and then off to the wine tastings!! No spitting it out required although we could if necessary.

We drove down to Mikulov and then into the countryside to a vineyard that Jarek already knew about and had already bought wine from. Reisten in Pavlov.

Here we tasted several of their whites, gradually moving from the cheaper wines to a smooth Pinot Gris that recently won a silver medal at a wine festival in France.  The last one we tried was a dessert wine. Very sweet that would go well with fruit.  We bought a measly two bottles and Jarek loaded three half-cases (six in each) into his car. Their website is http://reisten.net/?co=onas&lan=en

From there we headed down in to the village centre and parked outside the town hall, or Obec. In the cellars is the local wine cellar (seller?). It's here all the local small producers can showcase their wines. Unlike Reisten, tasting isn't free, but wine is sold by the glass.  You do not spit out 20kc a time wines.  Wines are priced by the bottle and the glass price is simply a sixth.  Most of the other clientele were cyclists and walkers, stopping in for a glass or two of wine on their travels. If you just wanted to taste, you could have one glass between four (or however many there are!) but we had a glass each of a few different ones to try.  We ended up buying a few.

Luckily, Jarek was the designated driver and we could try as many as we wanted.

Once back in Popuvky we had a sit down and chat about the wines and we then went to bed, ready for the drive home to commence.